Re: Talk About a Philosopher
According to Plato, "philosophers must become kings or kings must become philosophers before the world will have peace." The fourteenth Roman Emperor (from 161 to 180, Marcus Aurelius (121-80) was probably the closest thing to a philosopher king the world has ever known. Born to a prominent Spanish family in Rome, he became an orphan at a young age and devoted himself to a life of study. By the age of twelve he was mastering geometry, music, mathematics, painting, and literature. Under the mentorship of private tutors he learned fluent Greek and Latin and the whole of philosophy from the ancients through the Stoics whom he most admired. By the age of fourteen he received the toga virilis, the white robe signifying adulthood and full citizenship in Rome.
A series of events that brought him to the throne began when the emperor Hadrian picked Marcus's uncle Antoninus as his successor but only on the condition that Antoninus should designate Marcus to be the next Emperor. Thus already by the age of seventeen Marcus Aurelius became apparent to the imperial throne of Rome and began preparing himself. By the time he became Emperor at the age of thirty-nine, he had earned a reputation as a great statesman and philosophical visionary; during his subsequent nineteen year reign be brought about more political, social, educational and economic reforms than any other Emperor. He became known as a champion of the poor, of children and especially orphans, and brought about many reforms with the idea of improving the condition of slaves. By all accounts he resisted what he was as the corrupting trappings of power, remaining a sincere and simple human being capable of great kindness but a powerful and resolute leader. As the commander-in-chief of the Roman legions, he also successfully defended Rome against more invasions than any other Emperor: he fought back invasions from Syria, Spain, Egypt, Britain, Italy, and the German tribes along the Rhine-Danube frontier. He regarded the Christians as the most subversive and dangerous element within the Roman empire and violently persecuted them, warning that if Christianity were allowed to corrupt the intellect and souls of the citizens, the entire Roman Empire would fall, destroyed in the end not by physical assault from external enemies but from within, ruined by the mental deterioration of its own people.
In Athens he financed all four great philosophical schools: The Academy, The Lyceum, The Garden, and the Stoa. The Meditations, written to himself during military campaigns, is a twelve-volume compendium of his ruminations on life. It reveals the mind of a Stoic philosopher of great eloquence, laying out his own path of self-discovery and enlightenment; he rejects, for instance, the Stoic doctrine of absolute truth, holding instead that we can at best have probable knowledge and that therefore to be virtuous we must always keep an open mind. His overarching theme throughout the Meditations is that there is but one thing that can keep the "daemon within a man free" through the tumultuous trials and tribulations of life: philosophy.
As a philosopher Aurelius believed that a divine providence had placed reason in man, and it was in the power of man to be one with the rational purpose of the universe. This is a duty to a man himself and to the citizens of God's State. No man can be injured by another, he can only injure himself. He attempted to be a philosopher-king, which he considered a moral rather than a political ideal. He believed that the moral life leads to tranquility, and stressed the virtues of wisdom, justice, fortitude, and moderation.
Here is a lil excerpt from my paper on Socrates: